Oxford Movement (wikipedia)
This story is set against the backdrop of the work of the Oxford Movement, also known as the ‘Tractarians’, who agitated for religious change within the Church of England in the first half of the 19th century.

Gothic Revival (wikipedia)
M.R. James once again uses this story to take a swipe at the followers of the gothic architectural revival, whose renovations of English churches during the 19th century resulted in the destruction of many historic church interiors.

Tanfield Tomb (burfordchurch.org)
The tomb in this story is based on that of an ancestor of Speaker William Lenthall, Sir Lawrence Tanfield. Like the tomb in the story, it fills up most of the north choir aisle of Burford Church, and largely matches the stories description.

Burford Priory (wikipedia)
In the story Mr Cave and his family live in what was originally Burford Priory, now a very fancy private residence. Also see this pdf for images of the Priory as it was at the time of this story.
Those in the UK can also watch this episode of ‘Time Team’ on 4oD in which they excavate the remains of the priory hospital beneith the front lawn! And finally, how do you link Speaker Lenthall to the phone hacking scandal? Easy!

9 Comments

Personally, I would have preferred the worm, because James does use his spiders and hair a lot. Gotta admire a guy who puts such a vague and downright metal inscription for his gravestone as ‘I Am Worm’.

Also, I think the story Will was talking about was ‘Caterpillars’ by E.F. Benson, but I cant be sure.

I agree that the wallop here is awfully similar to quite a few others we’ve come across.

I think it’s a big divide in horror stories: do they happen to people who had no idea what they were getting into, or do people have already to know something or to poke into things they shouldn’t before the horror is sprung? Most authors seem to stick to one or the other.

As a horror writer (absolute amateur), I can say that it seems to work better, in a way, from the whole fear of the unknown standpoint, to not have your main character know what is going on, from the whole fear of the unknown standpoint. But that by no means means that the main character can’t have in inkling of what is going on, but it should be something just out of the ordinary, but in an obvious way that draws you attention to it, and perhaps your main character can make the connection that something they did caused it.

Enjoyed this one a lot – especially since I have a copy of A Pleasing Terror (thanks to you folk), and glad to hear more of that story fragment.

About a spider as a symbol of avarice – sorry, going to go tedious on you – but I remembered that the myth of Athena and Arachne has much to do with envy over who has the title/skill of best weaver. (I still associate spiders with grabbing something to hit them with myself.)

Meanwhile you have me really interested in that tomb and the lady with the immodest dressline. This link (http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2702620) calls her a demi-maiden – which is apparently something in heraldry? I was wondering if it had something more to do with court fashion and was hoping for some salacious stories. Ah well.

EF Benson wrote a story called “Caterpillars” which featured scenes of a bed crawling with caterpillars (or, to be specific, hairy caterpillars with crab-claws). Is this the story you were thinking of when you mentioned one that featured a bed crawling with worms?

A couple of questions. What could have been in the missing page(s) which didn’t duplicate what follows? Also, why would anyone build a funerary monument topped with the figure of Envy? You’d expect something a bit more edifying than that, surely?